Grain extracts are commonly used as an additive to food products, pharmaceutical preparations and a wide variety of other products as flavor, color, sweeteners and/or texture enhancers.
An extract produced from oats, referred to as oat extract, may be made in either liquid or powder form. In liquid form, oat extract is a fairly viscous, brown liquid that can be readily dissolved in water. Oat extract has a sweetness roughly half that of sugar.
Oat extract has particularly desirable flavoring, coloring, sweetness and moisture retention characteristics that make it particularly well suited for use as an additive to a variety of products including almost any oat or cereal based food product. While the use of oat extract offers the potential to enhance the quality of many products, the production of oat extract has presented several technical as well as commercial problems.
In accordance with the known method of producing oat extract, the oat extract is produced from oat flour that is mixed with water. The solution is then heat treated to convert the starches in the oat flour solution into sugars. After heat treatment, a centrifuge is used to separate the oat extract from the undesired byproducts which remain.
The turbidity, i.e., cloudiness, of the extract produced from the oat flour, the length of time needed to process the extract, and the overall poor yields that result from the use of the known method of producing oat extract are factors that have hindered the known method of producing oat extract from becoming commercially successful.
Accordingly, there is a need for an improved method of oat extract production that will produce an extract having relatively low turbidity, in a reasonable amount of time and in a cost effective manner. Furthermore, in order to be commercially successful, the method of producing oat extract should have a high enough yield to make the resulting extract commercially competitive with other food additives such as malt extract.